


Real Love

by toyhto



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Crack, I was watching the Umbrella Academy and this fic happened, M/M, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:46:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27179437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: There's a new guy in Hogwarts, the School of Heroes and Heroics.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 18
Kudos: 63





	Real Love

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what I'm doing.

That day had been a disaster right from the beginning. An old woman had almost died and it had been the new guy who had saved her.  
  
”Maybe we should introduce ourselves,” Peter said.  
  
“We should definitely introduce ourselves,” Lily said.  
  
“He already knows who we are,” James said, but he didn’t sound certain.  
  
Sirius looked at them for a few more seconds and then stood up from a pile of pieces of what he supposed had once been a flower-patterned sofa. “Of course he knows who we are. Why wouldn’t he?”  
  
“Sirius,” Lily said in the same tone she often used when Sirius suggested something.  
  
“He’s pretty good,” Peter said. He sounded scared but then again, he was scared of many things. Sirius had never understood why. Maybe it was just Peter’s personality. Poor guy. He was nice, though.  
  
“He’s not _good,”_ James said, still not sounding certain. “He’s just lucky.”  
  
“He’s not just _lucky,_ ” Lily said. “He’s very good. You’re just jealous.”  
  
“Why would I be jealous of _him?”_ James asked, pointing at the new guy, who wasn’t even looking at them. James certainly had a point. The new guy didn’t seem special in any way. He had light brown hair that looked like it had been ruffled in the wind and was a bit too long for him anyway, he had a funny scar reaching from next to his left eye to his upper lip, his clothes looked like he had bought them in the second-hand shop and not with much stylistic insight, he was tall but lanky and his shoulders were slouched, and he looked nervous. Sirius had been watching the new guy for twenty minutes now and was already almost certain that he would never like the boy.  
  
“We should just go home,” he said out loud, still looking at the new guy. The old woman’s house wasn’t even in fire anymore. Now the new guy was trying to get the old woman’s cat come down from the tree. A show-off. Definitely not worth getting to know.  
  
“You’re all being idiots,” Lily said, not sounding the least surprised. But she didn’t object, when they walked to the station and took a bus back to Hogwarts. There were too many dogs in the bus and Sirius ignored them the best he could. He just wasn’t in the mood to cheer up right now. He wanted to feel betrayed, and angry, and generally just pissed off, because there was a new guy in Hogwarts and he had saved the day and also the cat.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“I want to introduce you to someone,” Dumbledore said to them next morning, interrupting breakfast. Sirius had barely got started. He had spent half of the night trying not to think about the new guy. He glanced at Peter, who looked worried, and Lily and James, who looked like they had had sex half an hour ago. Sirius wasn’t bitter about the fact that they were together these days, not at all.  
  
Someone kicked him in the ankle under the table. It was Peter. He was going to tell Peter that he didn’t mind that James and Lily were together and anyway, that wasn’t his business, but then he realised what Peter had been trying to tell him.  
  
“This is Remus Lupin,” Dumbledore said, “the new guy.”  
  
Sirius blinked. The new guy was looking at them. He seemed nervous.  
  
“He started yesterday,” Dumbledore said, “as you know. He saved the old Mrs. Harrison and her cat.”  
  
“We could’ve done that,” Sirius said. He was a little surprised to find out that he was talking. He hadn’t meant to. But he was angry for some reason and being quiet really wasn’t his thing. “We would’ve taken care of everything, if he hadn’t showed up.”  
  
Someone kicked his ankle under the table again. This time, it was Lily, which was bad, because she kicked much harder than Peter.  
  
“Surely we all agree that the important thing is that _someone_ saved Mrs. Harrison and her cat,” Dumbledore said in a light tone. “Now, everyone, say hi to Remus.”  
  
They said ‘hi’ to Remus, but only Lily sounded as if she meant it. Sirius finished his breakfast so quickly that half an hour later, he almost threw up. He went to his room, sat by the window and felt sorry for himself. He already knew that he was going to hate Remus Lupin.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He didn’t hate Remus Lupin. It was a disappointment but he was only a human, even though he _was_ in many ways better than most of his kind. He tried to hate Remus, because Remus was irritatingly good at a lot of things and didn’t even seem to know it, and because Remus’ eyes had a really nice shade of blue. But two days later, Dumbledore put Remus and him on an assignment together. They were supposed to tail a young woman who Dumbledore thought was one of you-know-who’s spies or possibly his stylist. Sirius said he could do it with James, but James had caught a cold probably from kissing Lily too much, and anyway Dumbledore said he thought Sirius and Remus would be a good match and told them to find out if the stylist was the one who had suggested you-know-who could use slippers that made it almost impossible to hear when he was approaching.  
  
“We don’t need to talk,” Sirius said to Remus when they left the castle. Remus nodded and then didn’t say anything, and after ten minutes Sirius was so frustrated that he started talking. He told Remus that for past seven years, he, Lily, James and Peter had been the only students in Hogwarts’ School of Heroes and Heroics. And it wasn’t Remus’ fault, but personally, Sirius couldn’t understand why Dumbledore had brought Remus along _now_ when there was this new supervillain, you-know-who, who didn’t have a face and who hated cats. Sirius wasn’t sure why they called him you-know-who but maybe it was because no one knew his name. But anyway, you-know-who was trying to kill everyone who supported cats, and things were getting pretty bad. Even their housekeeper Ms. McGonagall had left them a few months ago, saying that she had three PhDs and a cat and she could do a lot more in the current situation than watch over teenagers, which was completely unfair, because they all were eighteen years old and therefore almost adults. Dumbledore had been pretty upset about Ms. McGonagall's departure. One evening, Sirius had found the headmaster in the library, drinking tea and sobbing, and the headmaster had told him that a long time ago, Ms. McGonagall had talked him out of getting back together with his ex-boyfriend who was some kind of an international villain. Sirius had stolen the tea pot from Dumbledore and had found out that there was a lot of whiskey in the tea, so that explained the sobbing but not the ex-boyfriend, because he had thought Dumbledore was far too old to have emotions and always had been.  
  
Once he had told all this to Remus, they had lost the woman they were tailing twice and found her once. He kept quiet for a few minutes, wondering why the hell he was talking to Remus whom he hated, and meanwhile Remus found the woman again. She definitely was you-know-who’s stylist. They watched her compare hats and then Sirius asked Remus why Remus had come to Hogwarts.  
  
“My mum died,” Remus said.  
  
Sirius cleared his throat. “What?”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said and nodded at the woman, who was now trying to match a red hat with a blue coat. “I think she’s dangerous.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
“He said his mum has died,” Sirius told the others that evening. “I don’t think we can hate him.”  
  
“Of course we don’t hate him,” Lily said, staring at him as if he had said something odd. “Why did you think we’d hate him?”  
  
“I talked with him the other day,” Peter said. “He seems nice. He’s read a lot of books.”  
  
“I’ve read more books,” Sirius said. He had read four. Four and a half. Six, if comics counted. Anyway, he didn’t think Remus could beat him. “He seems nice, though. Maybe we should just, I don’t know, talk to him.”  
  
“We _are_ talking to him,” James said. “You’re the only one who has been ignoring him.”  
  
“You’ve been talking to him?”  
  
“Yeah,” Lily said. “Yesterday, when you refused to come downstairs, he was there with us. We played with cards.”  
  
“I thought you and James were having sex.”  
  
“ _Oh my god_ ,” Lily said, sounding suddenly very dramatic for no reason whatsoever, “you _always_ think we’re having sex, like, all the time.”  
  
“But we _are_ having sex,” James said, sounding confused.  
  
“Yeah, but I don’t want _Sirius_ to think about it,” Lily said.  
  
“He’s not _thinking_ about it,” James said, now sounding a little offended.  
  
“Yeah, of course I’m not thinking about it,” Sirius said. The times had been very hard for him lately, ever since James and Lily had become a couple, because he didn’t want to think about them having sex. They were his _friends_ , for fuck’s sake. He didn’t want to wonder what sort of sex positions they would try or stuff like that. He had read about sex positions and some of them seemed very tricky. He was sure James wasn’t that flexible. They had once tried stretching together and had both hated it, even though Dumbledore had tried to convince them that flexibility was essential for superheroes.  
  
He had a tiny argument with Lily about thinking about Lily and James having sex. He won the argument. Lily didn’t think so, but she was wrong. Then Remus walked into the room and looked at them, and Sirius suddenly forgot what he had been going to say. Before he realised what was happening, Remus was sitting with them on the sofa, telling stories about Wales. Sirius had never been there and had kind of supposed it wasn’t a real place, but Remus made it sound like it was. And anyway, the colour of Remus’ eyes looked really nice in this light. Sirius was quite certain he had made the right decision when he had told his friends they probably shouldn’t hate Remus.  
  
  
**  
  
“What’s your superpower?” he asked Remus a week later. They were the only two still at the breakfast table. Sirius had overslept, so everyone else had pretty much finished breakfast before he had managed to get out of the bed. It had been kind of nice of Remus to stay at the table to keep him company.  
  
But then again, it was completely Remus’ fault that Sirius hadn’t got much sleep last night.  
  
“What?” Remus asked, looking a little surprised.  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said. “What’s your superpower?” He had spent the whole night thinking about it. Yesterday, Dumbledore had sent them on a mission to save a cat and its human from you-know-who. Everything had gone smoothly, the human had been relieved and the cat had been indifferent. And Sirius had kept his eyes on Remus the whole time – for some reason he liked to look at Remus – but he still hadn’t managed to figure out what Remus’ power was. It had happened a few times that he had had a feeling that _something_ weird had happened, but he hadn’t actually _seen_ anything happening.  
  
“I can freeze time,” Remus said.  
  
Sirius blinked. “You can freeze time?”  
  
“For fifteen seconds,” Remus said, throwing quick glances at him. “Or approximately fifteen seconds. I suppose it’s like… fourteen seconds point seven –“  
  
“You can freeze time?” Sirius cut in. “Like, you can actually stop time for a moment?”  
  
Remus nodded. “For fifteen seconds.”  
  
“That sounds like… you can _freeze time._ ”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said slowly. Sometimes when he was talking to Sirius he sounded like he didn’t know what to think. And Sirius had noticed that Remus talked to him more than to the others, which wasn’t exactly weird, because he was the most good-looking and charming one in their group. But two days ago, he had been in the library – that was the only place where Dumbledore wouldn’t think to look for him – when Remus came to him, cleared his throat and then said nothing, started inspecting the titles of the books on the shelves and just _lingered_ there. That had been weird.  
  
Sirius had mentioned all this to the others. Lily had told him Remus was probably shy, and Peter had laughed and said that maybe Remus was in love with Sirius. And then they all had gone very quiet suddenly.  
  
Now Remus glanced at Sirius, rubbing the side of his nose. He had freckles on his face but you could only see them from close distance. Sirius had been meaning to ask about the scar under his eye many times, but then he had had a terrible thought that maybe the story behind the scar wasn’t nice and maybe Remus didn’t want to talk about it.  
  
“So,” Remus said, “what’s yours? Your superpower, I mean?”  
  
“That’s personal,” Sirius said, took his cup of coffee and poured some on the cactus on the table. He had never managed to figure out why people pretended to like coffee. Maybe to boost their egos. “Peter can turn into a houseplant. That’s his superpower. Not as cool as yours, I’d say.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Usually he likes to be a rubber fig,” Sirius said. “He says it’s elegant and timeless and his grandmother had a lot of them in her house when he was a kid.”  
  
Remus seemed confused.  
  
“I _know_. There’re a lot of plants that are cooler than _rubber fig._ But Peter’s a little odd. And Lily can remember everything she’s ever read, so that’s almost completely useless, unless you think that there’s stuff in the books that you’d like to remember. And James can fix any mechanical device, so, like… almost any device. That’s actually very useful. But I think your power is cooler.”  
  
“ _Sirius_ ,” Remus said in a heavy voice, staring at the cactus. Sirius emptied his cup of coffee in the pot and frowned. Really, did people have something wrong with their palate? This stuff was _bad._  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“That’s not…” Remus said, his eyes wide. “The cactus isn’t…”  
  
_Oh._ “ _Oh._ No. It’s not Peter. Peter would never turn into a _cactus._ ”  
  
“Okay,” Remus said slowly. “And you’d never pour coffee on him.”  
  
“Hm,” Sirius said. “Anyway, none of us has a power that would actually help with the fight against you-know-who, so I suppose it’s good that we have you now. You can _freeze time._ Did you do it yesterday?”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said, “yeah, I… you remember when you-know-who was about to kill the cat?”  
  
“Yeah, I remember.” That had been pretty much the moment when Sirius’ headache had intensified.  
  
“I froze time, picked the cat up and put it on the table so that you-know-who would miss it.”  
  
“Oh,” Sirius said. “ _Oh._ That’s what happened. I just thought it was a very fast cat.”  
  
“No, it wasn’t,” Remus said. “And it scratched me.”  
  
Sirius nodded. Cats were like that. “Do you want to come to my room and listen to Led Zeppelin?”  
  
Remus nodded. Sirius smiled at him and then got onto his feet, and Remus followed him from the dining hall. On the way he realised Remus had actually never been in his room before. He just wished Remus would like it. James had said a couple of times that Sirius’ room was always messy, but maybe Remus liked messy. It would be nice if Remus liked Sirius’ room and wanted to come there again, and then they could just lock the door and spend time there together, just the two of them, and… well, Sirius wasn’t exactly sure what they would do together locked into his room, but he was sure he could figure something out.  
  
“Hey,” Remus said, when they were almost at Sirius’ door. For a second Sirius was afraid Remus had changed his mind, but why wouldn’t Remus have wanted to hang out alone with him? What an absurd thought.  
  
He turned to look at Remus. “Yeah?”  
  
“If your superpowers don’t help you against you-know-who, how have you been fighting him so far?”  
  
“Oh,” Sirius said. “That’s why Dumbledore gave us guns.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
He wanted to hang out with Remus all the time. Preferably in his room, where he didn’t have to share Remus with anyone. And Remus seemed to like Sirius’ room just fine, so everything was alright. Lily told Sirius to be careful and Sirius ignored her. She was a nerd. Then James told him to listen to Lily and he ignored James, because James was in love with Lily and couldn’t be trusted. Then Peter asked him if Remus knew what his superpower was, and he ignored Peter. Peter was a houseplant.  
  
“James can really fix _anything?_ ” Remus asked him one evening, when they were sitting on Sirius’ bed with _Black Dog_ playing on the stereo. Remus seemed movingly excited about James’ dull superpower. Also, the colour of his eyes looked very nice today.  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said, leaning closer. “As long as it’s mechanic. He tried to fix a PC once, you know, a personal computer. I don’t know where he got it and how he got it dragged into the house. He must’ve been exercising lately. Or maybe it’s from all the sex he’s having with Lily. I’ve heard that sex is good exercise. Do you like exercising?”  
  
“He tried to fix a PC?” Remus asked.  
  
Sirius nodded. “Yeah. But his power doesn’t work on digital devices. He was a little upset afterwards. I don’t know why. It’s not like digital stuff is going to be a big thing in the future or anything.”  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“Well, he blew up the cellar.”  
  
Remus leaned closer. “He blew up the cellar?”  
  
“It was bad,” Sirius said, grimacing. “It turned out the cellar was where Dumbledore had kept his old letters. Of course he doesn’t have many people who write to him. He’s so old that everyone he knew is already dead. But he had letters from his ex-boyfriend who apparently was a gay supervillain. He looked sad for almost a week after that.”  
  
Remus was staring at him. He took a deep breath and shifted a little closer on the mattress. Remus’ mouth looked very nice. Maybe Sirius should say something about it. He opened his mouth, and then he closed it again, because suddenly Remus was breathing harder and there was an odd feeling lingering on the back of Sirius’ hand, as if someone had touched him there.  
  
Remus cleared his throat. “Sirius –“  
  
“BOYS AND A GIRL,” came Dumbledore’s voice from downstairs. “YOU-KNOW-WHO HAS ATTACKED A CAT CAFÉ IN MANCHESTER. WE MUST GO AT ONCE.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
When they came back from Manchester in the evening, Sirius was very tired. That was partly because twenty cats were now following him and partly because he had spent the last three hours trying to stay alive and figure out if there was something going on between Remus and him. He certainly hoped there was. He also hoped the cats would get adopted soon. He liked cats but not this many at once.  
  
“They like you,” Remus said, stopping at Sirius’ door. He looked about as tired as Sirius felt. Sirius kind of wanted to walk to him and hug him, but he had eighteen cats in his feet, one in his arms and one clinging onto his shoulder.  
  
“Yeah,” he said. He hoped Remus wouldn’t ask why.  
  
“So,” Remus said, resting his hand on the doorknob, “you’re a cat person.”  
  
“Not really,” Sirius said. Maybe he could invite Remus into his room again. But it was late, and there were too many cats.  
  
Remus frowned. He looked very cute.  
  
_Oh, god._ Sirius was in trouble. He didn’t know if there was something going between Remus and him, but there certainly was something going on with _him._  
  
“Do you want to come in?” he asked. “To my room?”  
  
“It’s late,” Remus said, still holding onto Sirius’ doorknob. He sounded hopeful.  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said.  
  
“Maybe I should go to my own room,” Remus said. “To sleep.”  
  
“Or,” Sirius said, “you could sleep in mine. It’s closer, anyway.”  
  
Remus glanced over his shoulder. His room was two doors away. “True.”  
  
“I suppose the cats are going to take the bed,” Sirius said, “but we could sleep on the floor.”  
  
Remus nodded slowly. Sirius blinked and realised Remus was standing much closer to him than a second ago.  
  
“Alright,” Remus said.  
  
They went to Sirius’ room with twenty cats. Remus looked a little nervous. Sirius felt terribly nervous, even though he wasn’t sure about what. They talked a little about the attack in the cat café and then about the colour of Remus’ socks. Sirius asked Remus how he had got his scar and Remus didn’t tell him, and Remus asked him what his superpower was and he didn’t tell Remus, only he wondered if that was a mistake. But surely not.  
  
“Sirius,” Remus said when it was getting late and half of the cats had fallen asleep. “I need to tell you something.”  
  
Sirius straightened his back. “Okay.” Then he waited. But Remus just stared at him, looking terrified for some reason. “What’s it?”  
  
Remus cleared his throat. “I think I love you.”  
  
“What?” Sirius said, but suddenly two cats had disappeared from his lap and Remus was there instead, holding his face in between his hands and kissing him on the mouth. It was the best thing that had ever happened to him. The cats were staring at him judgingly, so he closed his eyes and pushed his fingers into Remus’ hair and whined a little, but he thought he sounded sexy and hoped Remus thought so too. At least Remus didn’t stop kissing him, not until they were both breathless.  
  
“Sorry,” Remus said, pulling away. “I shouldn’t have –“  
  
“Shut up,” Sirius said and kissed him.  
  
  
**  
  
  
It took them most of the next day to return all the cats to their homes. They still loved Sirius and didn’t want to go. Dumbledore seemed a little frustrated and Peter was being a rubber fig. James and Lily were nowhere to be seen, so probably they were having sex. But Remus was there the whole time, looking at Sirius. Sometimes when Sirius glanced at him, he blushed, and Dumbledore muttered something about a gay supervillain ex-boyfriend and disappeared soon after.  
  
When the cats were gone, Sirius lost Remus for a moment. It turned out that that was a mistake. When he found Remus again, Remus was in the library with Lily.  
  
“Sorry,” Lily said, turning to Sirius. It took Sirius maybe half a second to realise what had happened. The realisation came with a knowledge that now the best thing in his life would be gone and the would be the unhappiest person in the whole world for the rest of his life. Also, he would have to be angry at Lily, which wouldn’t be ideal, because Lily was sometimes quite nice and also one of his four friends. “I had to tell him,” Lily added. She didn’t look like she regretted it, but she looked a little sad.  
  
“I hate you,” Sirius said, also feeling sad. “And I’m not going to forgive you for at least a day.”  
  
“I know,” Lily said, walked to him and hugged him. He hugged her back. “I’ll tell James to steal some of Dumbledore’s whiskey so that you two can get drunk together later.”  
  
“Thanks,” Sirius said, and then Lily was gone. He had a sudden urge to run after Lily, because he couldn’t face Remus like this, alone in the library. He was pretty sure that Remus wanted to talk about love _._ He was a superhero but he also had his limits.  
  
He cleared his throat.  
  
“So,” Remus said, “your superpower.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said.  
  
“Lily told me what it is.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I kind of realise now why you didn’t want to tell me.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said and then took a deep breath. “It’s not like that. It’s not what you think.”  
  
“Really?” Remus asked. Now he sounded angry. Sirius didn’t want him to be angry. Sirius wanted him to love -  
  
Oh, _shit._ He really needed to keep it together now.  
  
“Because I think it’s exactly what I think,” Remus said in a tone that suggested he wanted badly to be wrong.  
  
“It’s not, though,” Sirius said, his voice coming out thin.  
  
“It’s not?”  
  
“Yeah. I didn’t use it on you.”  
  
“You didn’t use your superpower on me.”  
  
“Yeah. I didn’t.”  
  
“Even though,” Remus said and cleared his throat, “even though your superpower is that you can make anyone love you.”  
  
Sirius swallowed. “Yeah.” Then he took a deep breath. “Except my mother.”  
  
Remus blinked. “Except your mother?”  
  
“Apparently she’s immune.”  
  
Now Remus was just staring at him. Maybe it had been a bad idea to mention his mother so early in the relationship.  
  
He bit his lip. “Listen. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I can make anyone love myself. It’s just that I thought you might…”  
  
“You thought I might think that you’re making me love you,” Remus said, staring at him. “Well, are you?”  
  
“No,” he said.  
  
“And how will I know?”  
  
He shook his head. “You won’t.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
He got drunk with James and a rubber fig that night. They were in his room that still smelled of cats, and he couldn’t look at the rug without thinking about Remus sleeping on it, but otherwise it was as nice as it could have been, considering that he would never feel happiness again in his life. He supposed his heart was broken. He said this to James about fifteen times and then the rubber fig freaked out and turned into Peter and told him that he was wrong, and that he would probably clear things out with Remus soon enough and then he would forget this had ever happened and go back to being his annoying self. He hoped Peter was right but doubted it.  
  
In the morning, he had a hungover and his heart was still broken. It was terrible. But after breakfast, there was an attack in East London and that distracted him a little. He shot a marble statue and a secretary fell fiercely in love with him, so everything was back to normal, at least for a while, until in the evening he found himself in the library again, alone with the hungover and the broken heart. What a terrible company to keep.  
  
Then someone knocked on the door.  
  
“Come in,” he said.  
  
“I’m still angry at you,” Remus said, closed the door after himself but didn’t come any closer.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“You should’ve told me that you could make me love you.”  
  
“Then you wouldn’t have believed it was real,” Sirius said.  
  
Remus blinked at him. “But now I can’t believe it’s real.”  
  
“Yeah, I know,” he said. If he had known love was so difficult, he would’ve had more sympathy for characters in romantic comedies. He had always thought they were just stupid. “I love you, though.”  
  
Remus bit his lip. “How can I know that you mean it?”  
  
“I suppose you can’t,” Sirius said.  
  
“And I can’t know if I really love you or if you’re making me love you.”  
  
“You can’t. But I’m not.”  
  
“So, I should just trust you.”  
  
Sirius shrugged.  
  
“Did those twenty cats really love you? Or were you making them?”  
  
“They didn’t really love me,” he said, and Remus looked very disappointed at him. That was a little odd. Remus had met cats before, surely he knew what they were like. “Give me a chance,” Sirius added.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because if I’m making you love me with my superpower,” Sirius said, “it’s going to wear out eventually.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“When?”  
  
“I don’t know,” he said. He had never tried to make someone love him indefinitely, except for a goldfish, when he had been a kid. The goldfish had died five years later, still loving him.  
  
Remus seemed very worried. Maybe he was worried that he would break his heart. Sirius wanted to tell him that he wasn’t going to, but he wasn’t sure, and he had recently learned how terrible it was to break your heart, so he didn’t really know how to comfort Remus. He just stood there, waiting. And then finally, when he was ready to give up all hope for eternity, Remus took a deep breath and said to him, “okay.”  
  
“Okay?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said, frowning. “Don’t move.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Just don’t move.”  
  
“What’re you going to do?”  
  
“ _Sirius_ ,” Remus said, sounding terrified, and then he disappeared.  
  
Sirius didn’t have time to move. He blinked, and there Remus was, in his arms. He kissed Remus and told himself that he wouldn’t let anything ruin this. He would wait for a hundred years or however long it would take Remus to believe that his love for Sirius was real, only hopefully it wouldn’t take longer than a week.  
  
He opened his mouth to ask Remus if they could possibly go to his room.  
  
“CHILDREN,” Dumbledore’s voice came from the entry hallway. “COME MEET MY GAY EX-BOYFRIEND.”


End file.
